Antiqued Mirror Project

In the interest of being real, one of my recent projects took a couple of tries to get it to where I wanted it to be. Well, how about taking a look at another of my recent projects inspired by other awesome bloggers that didn't end up exactly like I wanted...

Here's the finished Anthropologie-inspired mirror:

Some mirror is still left, some sheet music can be seen - cool, right?

These were my inspiration files:

Vintage Revivals - using muriatic acid for great results

Ramblings of a Gypsy Nomad - using EZ Off oven cleaner

Since EZ Off was already under my sink, that's what was getting used.

The framed mirror was an ornate plastic frame made by Syroco, which made a lot of wall decor back in the 70's. I generally like their pieces as candidates for makeovers and this was no exception:

Painted and glazed and it's already much prettier. Now for the mirror...

I used that orange paint stripper to take off the paint; it's not so noxious and is supposed to be less harsh. With mirrors, there's a layer of paint on top of the silvering that provides the reflective qualities. Be careful with older, vintage mirrors as they may have mercury in them and this would not be a recommended project.

Coated with paint remover

*Note: be careful with metal scrapers - they can scratch; plastic would be better!*

The paint remover was left on overnight...no reason for that length of time other than I got involved in another project...why do one project when you can do 16?? The paint came off just fine, and even a little of the silver at this point. I used a razor blade to scrape off some of the softened silver.

*Note: any scraping works much better while it's wet.*

Didn't even need to get to the EZ Off or acid or anything else. Since the razor blade left a rather hard edge on the scraped off parts (think squares instead of an organic wearing of the silver), I wondered what else would soften those hard edges without scratching the glass. So, out came the extra fine steel wool I use in furniture projects.

A little extra scrubbing and now there were nice worn spots in the silvering. Maybe a little too much, but for my first effort, it looks pretty good.

I mod-podged some vintage sheet music to the backing of the frame. Attaching it to the backing instead of the glass leaves the option to change out the design inspiration.

Here you can see how the razor blade scraping looks

What do you think of this project? Would you try it for your vintage-inspired mirrors? What would you want peeking out of your antique mirror?

I did a few more mirrors actually using EZ-Off for a different look and will update you on those tries soon.

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